I hope you guys enjoy this. What an awesome trip!
Greetings from El Salvador! I apologize to all those who have been checking this blog only to find no updates. I can assure you I have been trying, but the internet access here in in El Salvador is not very dependable to say the least. So I guess I have to fill you in on what’s been happening here since Saturday. ( I don’t know really where to start)! Today is the third day running medical clinics here in El Salvador. Each day we have been traveling to a different Calvary Chapel church plant throughout the country, and running free medical clinics. People in the neighborhoods where the churches are have been waiting to see our doctors and dentists for a couple of weeks now. For many, this is their only opportunity to receive medical and dental care because they lack the money to pay for the treatment. So usually we arrive at our site with a line of people already waiting to be seen. While the people are waiting to be checked out, we have a team (some from our C.C. Philly group, and some from the local Calvary) that shares Christ with them, and gives them Gospels of John as well as a pamphlet with directions to the church. Many people have gotten saved throughout these three days and we are praying for even more to believe on the name of Jesus during the last two clinics.
Everyone on our team is healthy, and doing great. They are all working extremely hard, and each night their exhausted from serving the Lord in this incredible heat! (I forgot to mention that we are all sweating by around 7:30 in the morning, and we don’t stop sweating until the daily thunderstorms come and knock out all the power, and close the roads – that’s at around 4:30 every afternoon). I would ask that you continue to pray for us – that the Lord would strengthen all of us for the remaining clinics, that He would be glorified in all that we do, and that many would continue to trust in Him as their Lord and Savior. We want to be a blessing to the local Calvary’s here, so please also pray that their church is encouraged by the clinics and by those who end up coming to hear God’s Word being taught every Sunday.
I think that’s all for now – I will try to update tomorrow, and will also try to get some pictures posted on here in a little bit. Thanks for all your prayers, we can all sense the Lord’s hand on this trip – please keep them coming!
Blessings,
Carlos
Hello everyone, sorry it’s been awhile since my last post. I guess I’m not doing very well with my commitment for a once a week update. I just wanted to write to ask you to pray for our Medical Missions Trip to El Salvador which will take place from September 26th – October 3rd. This trip was a trip that we had to postpone last November because of paperwork that couldn’t get done in time in El Salvador, and because of lots of red tape that we didn’t know about going in. Anyway, the Lord’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts far beyond ours right ? SO I think that last November wasn’t His timing, but I am praying that this September will be! And I am asking you guys to join me in praying for this trip. All the important paperwork is done, and it has all been submitted to the El Salvadorian government. At this time we are just waiting for the official “green light” from them. Please pray that we will get that soon, and that we can go ahead with the final planning and preparation for this trip. As in all trips that we do, we want to see Jesus magnified and exalted amongst the El Salvadorian people, and we are going to use free medical care as an open door to tell them about our glorious God and Savior. We will be able to meet some of their physical needs, and most importantly get a chance to share the gospel, and pray for them all while they will be at a Bible teaching church in their mountain village (where the clinics will be held). SO I am very excited about this opportunity but we certainly need your prayers for this trip – for right now in particular, so that we can get the approval from the government to host these free medical clinics. I will keep you guys updated on the status of everything as I get more information. Thanks for praying!
Secondly, I just waned to share with you a great resource that my buddy Matt Ellison from 1615 told me about. The book is called “From Akebu to Zapotec” and although I think it has been around since 2002, I have just learned about it recently. We just started carrying them here at the bookstore at C.C. Philly. The book is basically a children’s book with illustrations and info on Bibleless peoples going from A to Z. Each people group has their own page with a beautiful illustration and then a story about life in their culture. It’s a great way to get our kids to be thinking about these peoples, to be praying for them, and also for the Lord to send someone to give them the Bible in their language. Those of you who know me know how close to my heart that is. This is just another tool, another resource which enables us to talk to our kids about the importance of sharing Christ and His Word with those who have never heard. Check it out, I know you will not be disappointed !
Hey everyone, I know it’s been awhile, and I hope everyone enjoyed reading about our trip to Mexico. I also wanted to say that those of you who have been looking for the messages of our missions conference this past May will find it on C.C. Philly’s homepage in the next couple of days, I promise. Anyway, I just wanted to write a quick note about a medical missions trip to El Salvador that I am praying about doing this October 19th – 27th. You guys will hear about it on Sunday, and it will be in the bulletin next week, but I wanted everyone who reads this to know about it and to pray that the Lord will raise up those from our congregation that He desires to come on this trip. Of course it’s coming up soon and I’m behind on the planning, but I really feel like we are to do this, and things are already coming together really fast, praise the Lord! As mentioned above, the tentative dates are October 19th – 27th. It’s an 8 day trip as opposed to a 14 day trip to Zambia. The good news is that it only takes about 5 hours to get there, and once we are there, we’re there – hardly any travel time! We are looking for nurses, dentists, hygienist’s, and Md’s to do some medical clinics in the mountains of El Salvador. We will be working with three smaller Calvary’s that we have developed a relationship with over the past couple of trips that we did there. I’m thinking we may do two days of clinics at each place. Also, we may work one day at the Children’s Hospital in San Salvador, and go to a service at the main Calvary Chapel there as well. Anyway, I wanted you guys to know, and to start praying about it if the Lord leads. Anyone who is interested can contact me at church, or can shoot me an email. Of course our main goal is to come alongside of the local Calvary’s there, and to tell people about the One who can cleanse them from sin and death. We want to see people saved, plugged into the local church, be rooted in Christ, and we will be using this medical outreach to facilitate that. So, if this trip is for you, pray about it, and contact me -
blessings,
carlos
Our last couple of days of the trip were some of the best. We spent all day on Thursday at the orphanage in San Martin that is run by Potter’s Field and the main church in San Salvador. We had a great time hanging out with the kids. Someone from our church had given us new baseball gloves, bats and balls to give out and they had a perfect place to play there on the property. Some of the kids were naturals to say the least. They also have a Calvary that meets there on the grounds and the day we were there was the kick off to their after school ministry that they were starting, so were were blessed to be able to jump in and help with that. Rob and I both sensed the Lord’s blessing there in a great way and we are really excited to see what the Lord is going to do there.
Friday was going to be our day off, but because of the high winds we were not able to do a couple of things that we wanted to, but that was the Lord’s plan all along. We were able to get into the only children’s hospital in the country and minister to the kids on the blood disease floor. There is a sweet lady from the main church whose son spent a lot of time on that floor before the Lord totally healed him and now she goes back to minister to the parents there, so it was awesome to minister alongside her and her son David. The kids were really sweet and our guys brought some bright light into an otherwise depressing place. The puppets, baloons, stickers and songs were enjoyed by everyone and we all left there more blessed than the kids no doubt. We had such a great group of people who even in the midst of a difficult place to break the ice were never hesitant to bring the love of the Lord.
The Lord also blessed us with a great hike up to the top of a huge cliff with views that were breathtaking.
The trip home was wonderfully uneventful and we are really glad to be home with hot water and a quiet place to sleep.
Please continue to pray for the work of the Lord in El Salvador. There are some amazing, faithful people there and I have no doubt the Lord’s blessing will be upon the things He calls them to do. But like anywhere there a planty of challenges and hardships so lift up them and their families, there is a wonderful group of our brothers and sisters living there and desiring to share the love of Christ with the people of El Salvador.
This is Pastor Jaime from one of the outreach churches in the southern part of the country. We were there all day yesterday and had a great time. Our main work project was to try and rid the local soccer field of rocks, we were there for about three hours and only got 4. That might sound pathetic but each rock weighed about 200 pounds and we were trying to dig them out with poles made out of rebar and pick axes. The last one we got took all 8 of us guys to get it out of the ground and start rolling it off the field. The church here has found a great open door through soccer to minister to the community and many of the people from the church came out as a result of the soccer league.
After a futile attempt at the soccer field we focused our attention to a community outreach. Kids club went great, the children responded well to our team’s drama, crafts, and activities. As usually the night ended with children running around with Ruth Riddel’s baloons and faces all painted up. Rob and the girls played for the adults, they put the stage right in the middle of the dirt road in front of the church.
Today we went to another town which was more like a tourist town with beautiful old spanish buildings and churches. The leader of the home fellowships in the main church has started a church there so we came to help him. After a morning of painting, we got to play a 6 on 6 game of soccer against a team from the church and I am proud to say that we got a tie. Later in the afternoon, we did an outreach for the church, they rented a local disco club which was interesting to say the least. Probably the only event of its kind held there. The kids loved it and the adults were blessed by the music. Alde seemed to definitely have an impact on some of the younger kids who were there when he shared his testimony.
We are still injury free and sickness free so thanks for the prayers. We are heading to the orphanage tomorrow for a day with the kids and then they invited all the kids in the town to come over in the afternoon so we can share with them, so continue to pray that we have an open door. Thanks
Sorry for the delay but things are always busy. Saturday night the team was at Calvary Chapel San Salvador helping with the sunday school while Rob and the girls sang in the main service. Alde also got an opportunity to share his testimony at each service.
Sunday morning we got to the church early to help feed some of the neighborhood kids and then joined some of the girls from the church who take sunday school into the streets and some of the tougher neighborhoods in San Salvador. Their heart for the kids and their dedication left an impression on all of us as well as some of the sweetest kids ever.
Today was crazy, from start to finish worked hard and saw the Lord really bless in some cool ways. We started by driving to one of the smaller Calvary’s. They were in need of a new building so we helped out by digging the footings and putting up the structure needed for the new building. The project was led by Craig and Ruth Riddell with help from Justin, Matt and Preston. After that we left to the center of town to do an outreach with the kids and adults which was the best one so far, the kids were great and we had a lot of cool opportunities to talk to people. We were also treated to a great sunset. A great way to ring in the new year!
Speacial thanks to Hannah Rissinger for her help with the blog.
A VBS outreach today held at a local market.
Pastor Rob and Haidee Ortega leading worship at Calvary Chapel San Salvador’s saturday evening service.
Alde Ortega sharing his testimony at Calvary Chapel San Salvador’s satuday evening service.
Here are some pictures from the first outreach at the Calvary Chapel of Santa Maria.
Playing the “Parachute” game in Santa Maria – during the kids outreach
Lizzie Savar enjoying some face painting in Santa Maria
Pastor Mario, and his wife. He is the Pastor of Calvary Chapel of Santa Maria, El Salvador – a 2 1/2 hour drive from the capitol of San Salvador.
Here is Craig and Ruth Ridell making balloons for the kids during the outreach.
Please continue to pray for the team as they will be involved in outreaches, and construction projects during this next entire week. Trevor wrote today and said that Pastor Mario was encouraged by over half of the children and their parents that came to the church after the outreach to the children that day. Please continue to pray for their saftey, for their health, and for the Lord to continue to work in the hearts of each team member, as well as those that they will come in contact with throughout the week. Pray for the salvation of many El Salvadorians this week ! I will continue to keep you guys updated as I hear from the team.
blessings,
carlos